Gosh, iPad!

Remember how a mere two months ago, I was praising the iPad for being so very awesome?

Well that was before iOS5!

Don't get me wrong, it's still awesome and I still paid zero dollars for it, but... Let me explain.

Every time I turn on my iPad/go back to the home screen, I see this adorable face staring up at me:

Darling, right?  This picture could win contests, I tell you!  (Shut up, I know I'm biased.)

Since the iOS5 update, however, I have become increasingly irritated many of the times that I see those big baby blues.  Why, you ask?  Because since the update, Safari freaking crashes all the time!  And it's not just when I click on a site that may have a lot of funky add-ons or stuff like that.  It'll sometimes crash when I'm in the middle of reading a stinking news article.  Today it crashed TWICE during the same article!  I wasn't even touching anything!

Can you tell by my overuse of the exclamation point (!) that I am seriously annoyed?!

Srsly.

And the last feeling I want to feel when gazing upon the innocent face of my beloved offspring is annoyance.  It's harrowing, I say!  Harrowing!

Now I get it.  iOS5 was created around the iPad 2, and I just have a measly 1.  But I had to get the update if I wanted my apps to continue working.  Plus Apple is known for quality products that continue to have a high rate of functionality even when they are replaced by a newer generation.  And most of my iPad stuff works just fine.  But I use Safari a lot... And every time it crashes, I feel like kicking my iPad in the face.

At the end of the day, however, I could never be irritated by seeing that picture.  I mean, just look at those squishy cheeks!

But I would appreciate it if Safari could get its act together...  Just so you know, world.

And Apple, if you are reading this, you could make me feel better by giving me an iPad 2.  In the spirit of Christmas and good will and all that.  I'll write a good review of it, promise.

If that happens, one lucky blog reader may even inherit my current iPad.  Start campaigning now!

101 Things I am Thankful for Today.

Over the past week I have debated back and forth about whether or not I would write this post.  On the one hand, I have a lot that I am thankful for and I should recognize some of those things.  On the other, I am very lazy.

But then something happened that reminded me of how incredibly blessed I am and I should do more to recognize that.  I'm not going to go into the incident, just suffice it to say that I am so grateful for all that I have.  I give you permission to not read this incredibly long post, but I feel like I need to express a lot of gratitude right now.

So without further ado, 101 things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving (in no particular order, mostly just how they come to me):

1. Lewis.  He is the perfect man for me.  I can't imagine my life without him.

2. Jack.  All he does is eat, cry, and poo but I love him more than life itself and even beyond that.  He is incredible.

3. My mom.  She is for reals the very best mother out there and the reason I am the person I am today.

4. My dad.  He can beat up your dad.

5. My sister.  She is an amazing example of faith, courage, and unconditional love.

6. My brothers.  They make me laugh.  I know that anyone who hurt me would get a swift kick in the rear from all three of them.

7. Lewis' parents.  I am so glad that they are Jack's grandparents.

8. My siblings-in-law.  I feel like I can just hang out with any of them.  They're good people.  I just need more on my side.

9. My grandparents.  They're cool.

10. My aunts.  More like extra older sisters.

11. My uncles and cousins.  Can't imagine the Hirschi Olympics without them.  The Madsen ones are pretty stinking awesome too.

12. My nieces and nephews.  I especially appreciate how good they are with Jack.

13. Pumpkin pie.  I know I said that this is in no particular order, but I think this deserves a place right after my family, know what I mean?

14. My iPad

15. Facebook.  I keep up with so many people because of that site.

16. Skype.  I love that Jack and I can talk to my parents in freaking Uruguay.

17. Google.  What up.

18. Pinterest.  This site has inspired me to be a cooler person.

19. My blog.

20. Books.  What else would I do all day with only soaps on the TV?

21. To Kill a Mockingbird.  This book will always have a special place in my heart.

22. My sewing machine.  I finally feel like I have a talent that I am developing.

23. My bed.

24. Our cars.

25. Our home.  I feel particularly blessed about this what with the economy being what it is.

26. Public education.

27. Higher education.

28. My bachelor's degree.

29. My teaching certificate.

30. Lewis' job.

31. The fact that Lewis makes enough so that I can stay home with Jack.

32. Pacifiers.

33. Rocking chairs.

34. Car seats.  I love knowing that Jack is safe in the car.

35. Cloth diapers.

36. My blender.

37. Christmas.

38. Footie pajamas on babies.

39. American Fork Hospital and all the nurses and doctors that took care of Jack and me during labor, delivery, and recovery.

40. My OBs who made sure I had a healthy pregnancy.

41. The pediatrician.

42. Walmart and their price matching policy.

43. A high efficiency washing machine.

44. Our camera.

45. The fact that my mom asked me to send a picture of Jack every day so I take a picture of Jack every day.

46. My former students.

47. College football.

48. BYU and the mighty Cougars.

49. The Holy War (that's this Saturday, right?)

50. Contact lenses.

51. My KitchenAid.

52. Bountiful Baskets.

53. Disneyland.

54. Reese's Fast Break - best candy bar ever.

55. My talents.  I'm still trying to figure out what they are, but I appreciate the ones I have and I am working on developing more.

56. The blinds in our bedroom.  Jack could look at them for hours.

57. Checking the mail.

58. Painted toenails.

59. Having Lewis point out different constellations at night and different types of clouds during the day.

60. Adoption.

61. Being warm when I sleep.

62. The seat heaters in my car.

63. Tunak.

64. Yellowstone.

65. Camping.

66. S'mores.

67. Crunching leaves.  I will go out of my way to step on one.

68. Hiking in the mountains.

69. Running.  I wish I could do it more often.  There's nothing like a good run in crisp air.

70. Having different seasons.  Summer is my favorite by far, but I love stuff about all four.

71.  Summer vacation.

72.  Online banking.

73. Getting up early enough to see the sunrise.

74. Playing catch with a football or frisbee.

75. Running barefoot in the grass.

76. Driving up to Park City in early autumn when all the trees are different colors.

77. Seeing Christmas trees in people's windows.

78. Pandora radio - especially the Lullaby and Polar Express stations.

79. Jack's smile.

80. Toothpaste.  I love brushing my teeth.

81. The fact that I can meet my baby's needs.

82. Having photographs to decorate my home.

83. Watching Lewis play with Jack.

84. Weekends.

85. Having enough - even when it's barely enough.

86. Flowers.  I love flowers.

87. The fact that there are still things for me to aspire to, and there always will be.

88. My memories - good and bad.

89. Hindsight.

90. My many friends who have supported me over the years.  I would give a shout out to specific ones, but there are lots.  Sorry guys.

91. Our ward.

92. My visiting teacher.

93. The fact that my marriage is eternal.

94. The gospel.

95. Being able to take the Sacrament each week.

96. The Temple and the blessings I have received there.

97. That I live among lots of temples that I can attend regularly (perhaps in theory).

98. The law of tithing.  So very many blessings have come from us living that.

99. Having a living prophet and modern revelation.

100. The scriptures and the fact that I can read them each day.

101. My Savior, Jesus Christ, and His atoning sacrifice.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Future Tight End

When we first found out that Jack was on his way, I naturally started thinking about what he would look like. Would he get my monkey feet? What about Lewis' pointy nose (which I love)? Would his hair be curly? What color eyes will he end up with?

Eventually my thoughts turned to his stature. See, I have a... unique body. My torso is quite short. Like whoa. But I'm also 5'7'', which is on the taller end of average. This is due to my legs being ridiculous in length. Allow me to illustrate: My husband has a good five or six inches on me and our legs are the same length (mine might actually be a little bit longer).

While Lewis has legs of an average length, his torso is quite the opposite of mine: long. This provides for an abundance of stature possibilities for our spawn (okay, maybe not an abundance, but whatevs). I felt confident that Jack would end up outfitted with either long legs or a long torso; no way he would end up with a double whammy of both. That would be just silly. How would he fit in any of his clothes?

Guess what he ended up with. No, really. Guess.

Our little booger is in the 97th percentile for height. If he keeps growing at this rate, he will end up at 6'2" or 3". I see an athletic scholarship in his future, so long as he moves beyond that 50th percentile for weight; this would be ideal cause college is expensive and we are public educators.

Jack fit into the little bath attachment thing here for about a day.  Good thing he doesn't seem to mind having freezing legs.

I was reading some random blog about some random six month old. The child in question was being touted as super long at a whopping 25.5 inches. Jack is half an inch shorter than that and he is only two months old.

Ahem.

On top of his lengthiness, Jack wears cloth diapers. We love 'em, but they do add another inch or so to his torso length. And when his wardrobe consists mostly of onesies, you can imagine the trouble this might cause.

So what does this all mean? It means I am really grateful for all of my loved ones who gifted us baby clothing in a plethora of different sizes. I am beyond relieved that my child will not go naked this winter just because he decided to add four-and-a-half-plus inches to his head-to-toe measurement in two months flat. Because it's obviously his fault.

This is a 12 month onesie.  The only area where it doesn't really fit is the head hole cause his head is just in the 25th percentile.  We've concluded that he has adult proportions.

No wonder he's so fussy. You would be too if you grew nearly five inches in two months.

Question.

Baby clothes are adorable, that's for sure.  Jack looks darling in anything we put him in.  But I have a bone to pick with the greater baby clothing industry:

Why all the pastels?

When did that become a thing?  Babies don't even like pastels.  You put two objects in front of a newborn, one pastel, the other a bright color, and they will fixate on the brighter colored object every time!

Also too, all of my favorites of Jack's clothes are of the non-pastel variety.  I think he looks even more adorable in non-pastels.  Don't get me wrong - he's cute in pastels too.  I just like normal colored clothing better.

My favorite of Jack's jammies.  If they still fit, I would still make him wear them, even though Halloween is over.  He looks good in black.

Part of that may have to do with my third and most important point about wondering why pastels are a thing.

The poop.

Babies poop and they poop a lot.  Diapers are not always able to hold poop in.  When diapers fail at this their most important function, do you know where the poop goes?

Well, everywhere, but since clothes are often the closest thing to the diapers, the poop usually starts there.

Now if your baby is wearing, say, dark gray and forest green, this is not a problem.  Treat the clothes and wash them of course, but you don't have to worry about a noticeable stain.

Poop is not a problem in this outfit.

But if it's something like baby blue and duckling yellow, well... Let's just hope you don't mind adding splotchy mustard yellow to that color pallet.

White?  Okay.  That's bleach-able.  But not even a good scrubbing and an overnight soak in Oxyclean will remove a most stubborn poop stain from those darling pastel pants.

Thank GOODNESS the poop came out of his blessing outfit.

 Oh well.  At least baby clothes are cheap.

New Habits

Yesterday during church I found myself steadily rocking back and forth, back and forth trying to keep my sleeping baby in that condition.  And then I remembered that Lewis was holding him.  There was nothing for me to rock.

Not five minutes later I found myself doing it again.

Then today after Jack fell asleep I went about cleaning the kitchen.  Jack made a noise like something had startled him and he was shortly going to wake up.  To prevent this I started tiptoeing around, loading the dishwasher as quietly as I could before I remembered that Jack was in his room sleeping and the noise I heard was through the baby monitor.

I might need to get more sleep myself.

Requisite Post

As a mommy blogger, I feel compelled to share with you the adorable things my son does. And hoo boy, today was a doozy.

I've been trying to get him to look at himself in the mirror for WEEKS but he'll have none of it. Today he finally caught his own eye and just spent a good time grinning toothlessly at himself. It was beyond darling. Just sos you know, I get to spend all day long with the cutest thing to walk this earth.  Okay maybe not walk just yet, but when he finally achieves ambulation baby seals, sneezing pandas, and lol cats alike better look out.

As proof please examine the following:

Amiright?

Mommy blogger duty: fulfilled.

Favorite Store No More

I generally consider myself to be a reasonable and forgiving person.  I'm all about giving second chances.

But blow your second chance and... ho buddy, watch out.

Kohl's used to be my favorite store.  They frequently have good deals and they do a lot to get you back into their store, again and again (I'm looking at you, Kohl's Cash).

Due to two recent incidents, however, I am disinclined to shop there any more.

Incident Number 1:

We received a set of onesies for Jack that happened to come from Kohl's.  I really liked the onesies, but they were newborn size and he outgrew newborn clothes in about a week, so we decided to exchange them for a bigger size.  So Lewis, Jack, and I all head to Kohl's to make the exchange.  We go and find a set of onesies in the size we want and Lewis takes them to customer service to make an exchange while I shop.

The representative at customer service tells Lewis that he has to pay more money because the onesies we were exchanging were from last season.  Normally this would be understandable, except for the part where this season's onesies and last season's onesies were identical.

But the computer said that there was a price difference so Lewis had to pay the difference.  Naturally Lewis asked to speak to a manager.

The manager came out and immediately started treating Lewis like a hostile customer.  If you've met Lewis, you know that he doesn't know how to be hostile.  This was ridiculous.  Neither the customer service representative nor the manager could find any difference between the two sets of onesies (except for the size), but Lewis still had to pay the difference because that's what the computer said and there was nothing they could do about it. (Yeah, right.  There's always something you can do.)

Frustrated, Lewis paid the difference (we couldn't just take the wrong sized onesies home - they would have no use!) and went to find me.  He recounted the story and I immediately put back the $60 boots I was about to buy and we walked out.  We were planning on spending real money that day, but because of a $7 difference in two sets of identical onesies, we left with nothing.  Except the onesies.

When we got home Lewis sent off a message to the corporate customer service office.  They responded apologetically and assured us that we would hear back from that location within the week.

It's been over a month and we've heard zilch.

Incident Number 2:

A few weeks after the first incident occurred, I was willing to forgive the larger company that is Kohl's (see, I said I was forgiving) and just avoid the American Fork location, since they never responded like they were supposed to.  Plus Lewis and I both got gift cards to Kohl's for our birthdays (they were given before Incident Number 1) that needed spending.  Over Fall Break we were going to be in the greater Provo/Orem area anyway, so we decided to go and spend our cards at the Orem location.

Unsuccessfully.  The boots I was going to buy before didn't end up looking that good on me (chicken legs) and I was unimpressed with their clothing selection (this is bad news - post-baby me needs new clothes).  Lewis was going to get new jeans, but the ones he wanted were not on sale and they're kind of pricey.  I had been wanting a bread machine for a long time and Lewis has finally caught on to the idea of frequent fresh bread, so we decided to pool our gift cards and get that.  They didn't have any in-store, though so we went online.

We read through the reviews of each of their bread machines and selected one that had good reviews and a decent price.  Bam.  Ordered.  This was October 21st.

On October 23rd, I received an email that said our bread machine was ready to be shipped.  Included in the email was the requisite information for tracking my package.  It also said that the bread machine would arrive between October 27th and November 2nd.

Knowing that often packages will arrive before their designated window, I casually checked the tracking the next day.  The UPS website said that a shipping label had been created but the package had not yet arrived at their facility.  No big deal, it was still early.

So I checked again the next day.  No change.  Same thing the next day and the next and the next all the way to yesterday (November 8th).  By this point I was really annoyed that I didn't have my bread maker at my house and fresh bread in my belly.

Also in the email there was a link to follow the shipping from Kohl's website as well.  I had glanced at that a few times to be informed that the package had shipped.  That's all it said.  Nothing more specific.

So Kohl's Customer Service received another email from the Youngs.  I heard back from them not too much later.  They informed me that UPS made a mistake (not them, but UPS - way to own up to stuff, Kohl's.  Even if it was UPS, you're at fault too cause I bought the product from you.) and because of that they were unable to reship my bread machine.  They would return my money/gift cards, and if I still wanted the bread machine, I would have to reorder it.

I was livid.  First of all, why can't Kohl's reorder my item, why do I have to?  I ordered it, so obviously I want it.  Fix the mistake and then reprocess the order!  Second of all, if there was a problem with my order, why was I the one to contact Kohl's and not the other way around?  If they figured out the problem so quickly, it's obviously been there a while and they should have contacted me as soon as there was a problem.

And of course, since we used gift cards, we can't just go buy a bread machine somewhere else.  Or I suppose we could, but the money that was spent on the gift cards was already given to Kohl's so I'm not going to let those gift cards go unused.  I'm so freaking irritated.  And of course, we have to wait to get our money back (4-8 days to get a new gift card and 14-30 to get the excess returned) so I can't even just reorder the bread machine immediately because we don't just have enough money for it lying around.

In a world of Web 2.0 and social networking, Kohl's should know better than to let stuff  like this happen.  When anyone can get online and tell a story, companies need to make sure that they are telling good stories about them.

Kohl's wants us to "Expect great things."  Well I did.  And I didn't get them.

Sorry, Kohl's.  I'm out.

Weird Thing and Awesome Thing

As a stay-at-home mom, I don't get out much.  I therefore have to amuse myself with the little things that happen during my day, which may come at the expense of others.  I find this to be a healthy exercise.  I have no doubt that my mind would degenerate rapidly if I was only amused by the goings on of my adorable two-month-old.  He's darling and does cute stuff, sure.  But still.  If I'm ever to make it back to the classroom, I need my mind to stay sharp.

This is my justification for laughing at the following two incidents: One weird and one awesome.

The Weird:

Jack and I were chilling on the couch downstairs when I heard someone open the gate to our backyard.  At first I thought it was Lewis (it was about time for him to get home) but why would he come in the back?  I heard whoever it was jiggle the doorknob and, finding it locked, knock rather aggressively on the door.  In the back of my mind I was still thinking it had to be Lewis because, really, who else could it be?  There is no one I know who would try to come to my house through the back door.  Luckily I had enough smarts to open the blinds before opening the door because it was most definitely a stranger.  As I opened the blinds I gave this young hoodlum (I just assumed he was a hoodlum because he entered my yard through its closed gate but I suppose he could be an upstanding young man.  It's fifty-fifty.) an odd look and said, "Um, can I help you?"  He, rather quickly, seemed to ascertain that I was not who he thought I was going to be, offered a look of surprised, and hurried his little behind off my property.

Since this incident I've considered two possible explanations for why this occurred.  Number 1: This young gentleman was a close enough friend of our house's former occupants that he could visit them from their back yard.  The reason he hasn't been back since they moved out is because he was off filling the world with do-goodery.

Number 2: He got the wrong house because they all look the same and there isn't a house number in the back.

The world will never know which it is.

The Awesome:

Lewis had a long week.  It was Halloween, Jack's been keeping us up later than usual, and he's coming down with a cold.  As such he's pretty exhausted by the time Friday rolls around.  It was a little after 9 PM last night when I was trying to get Jack to fall asleep.  Lewis was lying in bed while I rocked and sang to our little toot and managed to fall asleep before Jack did.  Unfortunately we had not yet said our family prayer, nor had Lewis taken out his contacts.  Knowing that he would regret the latter (and hopefully the former), I shook Lewis awake after I put Jack down in his bed.  It was Lewis' turn to say the prayer and he technically did, but the prayer consisted of asking for Jack to be blessed and thanking for our house.  After he finished, he climbed back into bed only to be annoyed by me again, telling him to go take out his contact lenses.  He grudgingly complied and that was that.

Until this morning.  While Jack and I were downstairs, I heard Lewis call me from upstairs and ask why his contacts were not in their case.  Instead of putting them inside, in his half-awake state, he somehow managed to place them on the side of his case where I'm sure they dried right out.

Between that and his prayer, I'm still giggling.

Maybe I'm too easily amused.

A Post About Poop

I officially dub this week to be poopy.

My dear son Jack, who has not had a blowout in nearly a MONTH, decided to have two - two - major ones this week.

The first went straight up his front.  Not his back, his front.  I didn't even know that was possible.  I guess you learn something new every day as a parent.

The second one went not only up his front, but down his legs too.  It then travelled into his hands and onto his feet as he wailed and flailed while I cleaned him up.  The most impressive part was the amount I cleaned out of his belly button.

Did I mention that these were the only two poo diapers he's had in the past three days?  And I thought I would be excited when his digestive tract matured and he stopped having so many poopy diapers...